The story so far: On a trip to Southern Utah, my family car developed an overpowering screech on a lonely mountain road. We were rescued by a local woman, who drove us back to our hotel, where we found the number of a tow truck driver one city and 30 miles away. Now read on:

My wife likes to take trips. I like to take trips too, but her tastes are more catholic than mine. She likes to ride nearer the margins than I do. She doesn't skydive or mountain-climb (not anymore, anyway), but she does like first descents of rivers.

She went on one of those in Borneo. I stayed home. She got a book about her adventure; I got a certain freedom from pain and deprivation that I found pleasing. Tracy is fearless and I am not.

Lately she has taken up photography. Lately she has traveled by herself through the back roads of the Nevada and California deserts. We wanted to take a trip together, but she also wanted to take pictures.

Being the spouse of a photographer can be darned boring. You sit there kind of "duh" while the photographer hauls lenses around, adjusts a tripod, squints and curses.

"This is not good," the photographer might say. "The sun is out and the wind is moving the leaves on the trees."

"It's good for people," the photographer's companion might say, gazing at the long line of golden cottonwoods snaking down a high desert arroyo. Photographers do not enjoy comments like that.

So Tracy's plan was to drive slowly to Salt Lake City, taking photos like mad. Then she'd meet me at the airport, we'd spend a week hiking and gawking, then she'd get me back to the airport and she'd take a slow return trip, once again with cameras blazing.

Not that the photography totally stopped when I was with her. But she reined herself in, and I reined myself in, and a good time was had by all, until the car started screeching.

In the gathering chilly twilight - a snowstorm was supposed to be on its way, although no one knew for sure - we drove back to the car, this time with the tow truck driver. It wasn't one of those fancy tow trucks with a hook; it was a flatbed truck with a winch and a few pieces of lumber to provide a ramp.

The tow truck driver was not a mechanic. He didn't know what the sound was. Besides, the sound seemed to have gone away. But one never knew. Perhaps it was a remission. Out there in Boulder, Utah, where the mail until not that long ago had been delivered by mule, one did not wish to risk another breakdown.

So to the mechanic in Escalante it went.

I had the evening to brood about possible consequences. The closest bus stopped at Richfield, 100 miles away; there were no cabs or trains or anything. I was supposed to be back on Saturday so I could write my very fine column and be in the paper when my employers expected me in the paper.

That's the way jobs work.

Also, we had to be out of the motel no later than Friday morning, and most of the other establishments around were already closed for the season. Reception on our AT&T cell phone was nonexistent and Wi-Fi was sketchy. I was a city dweller bound by technology to certain modes of being. I understood that it might be good for my soul to be without those crutches - car, phone, Internet - but I'd already done my soul a lot of good with the walking and the gazing.

I did not sleep well that night. At 2 a.m., I thought: I can just take a sabbatical and ride back with Tracy, so I'll stay with her however long it takes to get the auto part from Las Vegas. (Not that there was any demonstrated need for a part; I just decided that would be part of the drama.)

At 4 a.m., I wondered if I could pay someone to drive me to Salt Lake. Sure, take it out of the credit union, blow my money on a race to the plane. But I sensed that was not the cowboy way. My anxiety level was topping out at 3 feet above storm surge.

We spoke to the mechanic the next day. "You just got some rocks up in your calipers. You can come pick it up anytime." All that planning and fretting for nothing. I decided to let the experience become a cautionary tale about fear. Whatever you think is wrong, it's probably just rocks in the calipers.

If not: Still plenty of time to worry.

"But it's no use now," thought poor Alice, "to pretend to be two people. Why, there's hardly enough of me left to make jcarroll@sfchronicle.com.